Twin Skeletons
by Miss Nihilist
Summary: John thought that pranking Roxy by taking her on a wendigo hunt would be fun. He was wrong.


**A/N: This is also something that I turned in for my Myths and Legends class.**

 **Fanfiction is easier than an essay.**

* * *

She hugged her jacket tighter around herself, holding back a shiver as another strong gust of wind sent her artificially whitened hair scattering into her face. "John, do we really have to be out here?" Her steps quickened, struggling through the thick snow until she was walking next to him. "If you're going to drag me outside in this weather, a better explanation than showing me "something cool" would be nice."

The pale moonlight made the snow glitter all around them, hanging from even the tallest tree branches as John led her through the forest. By now, his family chalet had disappeared over the horizon far behind them. How long had they been walking? She was not sure. Roxy just focused on keeping warm, her gloved hands shoved deep in her pockets, and her face buried in her wool scarf from the nose down. Like this, it was a struggle to get a good gulp of air, but her nose was not numb anymore, and that was her priority.

"It's not just "something cool," Rox." John snorted, and not for the first time, she wondered what she saw in this nerd. Then he stopped walking and turned to face her and, _oh, that's right._ His unnaturally blue eyes were practically aglow with excitement, and in the low lighting, they looked positively abnormal. John did not appear to be bothered by the cold, his nose and his ear tipped with a deep red that he ignored as he grinned. "We're looking for a wendigo. It means "evil spirt that devours mankind" or "cannibal" in some translations. They're from Algonquian folklore, mainly. There's been many sightings in this forest over the years. I figured that out of anyone, you would be able to appreciate it." He spoke animatedly, waving his hands around when he talked. His hair, darker than the night sky, bobbed in front of his eyes as he did so. It contrasted nicely with his pale skin and the snow around them, to the point that Roxy forgot for a moment that the term "wendigo" was supposed to mean something to her.

Sometimes it was hard to care when all she wanted to do was kiss him silly. John was possibly the only man she had ever dated who was more interested in getting her to play Pokémon than fooling around. And, inexplicably, that was exactly what drew her to him.

"Oh, um, of course." Roxy nodded automatically, groping her mind for information on whatever a wendigo was. John was always talking about one mythical creature or the next, and it was hard to keep them all straight. "That's the, uh, really strong creature made out of ice, right?"

John shook his head, but his grin did not falter. "Close. You're thinking of the wechuge. It's similar to the wendigo, but they're pretty different. The wechuge is more like becoming "too powerful," and the wendigo is about possession and corruption." He really was adorable when he was this fascinated with a subject. Half of the time, Roxy did not even listen to what he was saying. She just watched his mouth move, and noted the way he paced or shifted his body a certain way to emphasize words or entire sentences. He liked to study the supernatural, and she liked to study him.

Again, she replied with a nod. "Uh huh. So, um, do you think that we'll actually find a wendigo?" Of course, they would not. However, Roxy did not want to be the one to crush his childlike wonder. It was such a difficult quality to find in people anymore.

"I hope so!" John reached into her pocket to pull out her hand, wrapping it in his much larger one as he continued walking, stringing her along behind him. Her face was no doubt a deep shade of red, but it was not from the cold. The only reason she had put up with this wendigo search for so long was his promise before they left to "warm up" together afterwards. She was probably imagining something different from what he had meant, but still. "They're pretty rare, but it's the middle of winter at night, and we're in the right area. They live in the northern forests close to the Atlantic Coast. I haven't heard of any sightings in any country besides the United States and Canada, and we're pretty close to the national border. They like areas where food is scarce and survival is challenging." He gestured to the frozen trees around them. "So I'd say that we have the right idea. We'll only search for a little bit longer, and then we'll head back, okay, Rox?"

The promise of warmth coaxed another nod from her. She was starting to feel like a bobblehead. Just look nice, nod, and go with it. "Yeah, okay." Roxy agreed, and her eyes fell on his overstuffed hiking pack. At least he had been courteous enough to not make her carry that. It must have weighed close to thirty pounds. "I hope you have something in there that can kill one of those things." She said with a joking tone.

To her surprise though, John quickly nodded. "Of course I do." He reassured her. "Some legends have said that the part of the creature that was once human is still inside of them frozen where their heart should be. I have stakes that should be sharp enough to run right though, killing them. Wendigos are reported to have thin, decaying skin, so it's not like I have thick armor to penetrate." He patted his pack, angling his arm awkwardly to do so. "This has everything that we'll need to survive."

In response, Roxy pulled her jacket tighter around her, trying to cover up her discomfort by forcing a laugh. "Yeah, ha, that's… that's great, John." Stakes? Decaying skin? This was much more real than any of the other monster hunts John had ever taken her on. There had never been… weapons before. Suddenly, all she wanted to do was go back to the chalet. She wanted the warmth and the security and the normalcy. John often pushed her out of her comfort zone, but this was getting to be too much. The thought of disappointing him however, pushed her to continue. "Decaying skin, huh? Neat. So cool. What else do they look like?"

Asking questions was always a good way to distract John. He took the new topic and ran with it. "It varies from myth to myth." He began, pushing aside a low-hanging tree branch and ushering Roxy yet deeper into the sea of evergreens. "Wendigo, or wendigoag, the plural," John giggled a little at the term, "are very tall and unnaturally skinny, with deeply sunken, glowing eyes and yellowish, decaying skin. They have an unending hunger and crave only human flesh." John turned to look at Roxy as he said this, grinning. There was a glint in his eyes that sent a shiver down her spine, and she did her best to look unaffected by the unexpectedly thorough depiction. "They have long, yellowed fangs and long tongues. Some can be giants, and get much bigger than human beings. Around fifteen feet tall, if you can believe it! They grow depending on the size of their meal, so that they can never be full. They can be huge, but they can navigate through the tree branches without making a sound."

"You sound like a textbook." Roxy sighed quietly, but not loud enough for him to hear. This would be cuter if he was prattling on back at home, and not in the frozen wilderness. She was surprised, though. It wasn't like Roxy was particularly looking for animals, but she had expected there to be more wildlife. Maybe everything was hibernating. Hopefully everything was hibernating. "So, where do, uh, wendigos come from?" She wanted to change the subject away from what they looked like. She had the basic idea by now, and as much as Roxy wanted to deny it, she knew that the mental image of the creature was going to haunt her tonight.

"Wendigoag." John corrected automatically. "They're human-like monsters that are created when a human resorts to cannibalism. Even if necessary for survival. The fear of these creatures was so bad that most Native Americans would kill themselves rather than resort to eating another person. They can also be an evil spirit that possesses a person, but, ah, that's really more like Wendigo psychosis." He laughed, and Roxy joined in. Unlike his easy chuckle though, her wheezing laugh was noticeably forced and uneasy. The cold was seeping through her clothes. She just wanted to turn around and go back. _Just a little bit longer,_ she reminded herself. _Just a little bit longer and John will call it a night, and you'll be remembered as that cool chick who's down for a monster hunt. Totally irresistible._

"In some legends, the first wendigo is said to be a great warrior." John continued, forever oblivious as he stopped walking. They stood in a small clearing, a frown on his face as he studied the sky and trees around them, talking all the while. "His tribe was in the middle of a war, so he gave up his soul to the Devil in exchange for the power to win. He was made into a wendigo, and the war was won. After the fighting ceased though, there was no more need for such a savage creature, so he was banished and forced to live as an outcast. It's said that he still roams these very woods, growing and growing with every lost hiker and stray wanderer that it devours." John's grin was practically malicious, and the angle that he had positioned them blocked her view of the moon, hidden by the thick pines. His face was cast into shadow, and the blue eyes that had been so bright earlier sent a spike of dread through her heart.

Fear ate at her stomach insistently, but she stubbornly pushed it down. "Haha, very funny, _John_." Roxy forced out instead, letting go of his hand to punch him in the shoulder. She doubted that it hurt. "You took a poor girl into the woods and terrified her. Job well done. Now take me back. It's freezing out here." She shifted in place, glancing around the small area anxiously. There was something… noticeably off about this. She couldn't put her finger on it exactly, but it made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up, and it urged her to _get out of there before something terrible happens._

John laughed, a loud, jarring sound that jerked her from her ponderings. She couldn't see the humor in any of this, but John seemed to find it hilarious, doubling over and clutching his stomach as he howled in amusement. Slowly, he calmed down, but all Roxy could do was stare blankly. Was she supposed to have a reaction to this? She felt numb, inside and out. "I was- I was just waiting for you to finally give up." John snickered, straightening back up. Breath puffed up in front of his face every time he breathed out, and Roxy found herself focusing on the rhythmic, subconscious action instead of his words. "We should have turned back half an hour ago. Wendigo haven't been seen in this part of the forest. I just wanted to give you a good scare." He winked, nudging her playfully.

Weakly, Roxy managed, "Can we go home now?" She felt tired, and she likened her toes and fingers to ice. They might as well have been one in the same for how cold and dead they felt.

John's expression softened, and he wrapped an arm around her shoulders, pulling her against him. She couldn't even really enjoy it like this. "I'm sorry, Rox." He brushed her bangs out of her face, kissing her forehead gently. "I really need to learn when to quit with jokes, don't I? C'mon, let's head back."

She closed her eyes gratefully, leaning against John and leaching off his heat as he led the way. What time was it? Her watch was buried under layers of coats, so she wasn't sure. It must be late. What other explanation was there for how tired she felt? But at least they were heading back. There was a warm bed waiting for her and she was anxious to get to it.

"Huh." John stopped walking, and Roxy's eyes flew open. She scanned their surrounds, not that it did her much good. Every tree looked the same to her. She couldn't be sure if they had passed by here before or not. "That's odd. Our footprints just… stop." Roxy followed his gaze, and sure enough, there were their footprints heading towards them, but they cut off just a few feet in front of them. The snow was fresh and undisturbed, as if they had never been there at all.

Roxy scowled, giving John a hard shove. "I thought you said that you were done trying to scare me!" She snapped. John opened his mouth to reply, but she continued before he could. "I swear to _God_ , if you got Dave up here to help you terrify me, we are _through_! I'm scared, alright? Happy? Is that what you wanted to hear? I'm not in the mood for any of your stupid pranks, and I just want to go home!" She felt on the verge of tears, but she choked them down. Tears on top of yelling at John definitely wouldn't look good.

But rather than admit to what he was doing, John's expression crumbled. "Roxy, I- no, this isn't me, I swear. I don't know how this happened, but I think that we should hurry on home. This place gives me the creeps." He glanced around, wringing his hands nervously.

What he said was logical, but Roxy didn't want to give up on her anger that easily. "Fine." She huffed, crossing her arms. "Let's go, then." She stomped off in the direction that the footprints were coming from, silently fuming.

"Roxy, hey-!" John trudged through the snow after her, but she just picked up the pace. "Wait up! You don't know this forest the way I do! You could get lost!" His words slowly became quieter, less frequent and less insistent the longer she ignored him. Finally, they stopped completely. Roxy relaxed. He was letting her cool off, and she liked that. She didn't need his charming smile and easy words to make her forget that she was supposed to be mad at him.

The sound of rustling leaves brought her steps to a screeching halt, and Roxy turned around to find John gone. The tree branches were shaking ever so slightly, and she frowned. Hadn't John mentioned something about wendigos or whatever they were called traveling in tree tops?

It made her anger bubble all over again, and she groaned in exasperation, marching over to the tree. "John, get down from there!" She kicked the truck, covering up a wince of pain. It was sturdier than she expected. "I'm serious!" Roxy put her hands on her hips, staring up at the foliage. "Enough is enough! Get down from there!"

Slowly, ever-so-slightly, the branches shifted and parted.

What stared back at her was most definitely not John.

Two great pairs of yellow eyes leered at her through the leaves, and she could only watch, jaw hanging open and her eyes popping out of her skull, as impossibly long legs unfolded themselves and the beast lowered itself to the ground. John's description wasn't too far off. The wendigo was indeed, very human-like. Its skin was rotting away, hanging off of its frail figure just barely. Bones showed through, the creature's rib cage heaving with every painful breath. It was easily three times her height, and Roxy had to crane her head back to gaze upon its face. Its mouth was lined with razor-sharp teeth, blackened with time. She did her best to ignore the red-stained tips of its teeth and claws. The implications were pushed from her mind.

"John…?" She breathed, terror gripping her heart and keeping her feet firmly planted in the snow. There was no way that John was still alive. And if he was, then he wouldn't be for long. But she wanted him to be okay – desperately, more than anything else in the world.

The wendigo tilted its head to the side, as if considering something. It raised a hand, and Roxy recoiled as if wounded. But all it did was reach up into the foliage. She knew what she was going to see before it had even moved, but the sight of John still made her gag. Try as she might though, she couldn't seem to look away.

The wendigo hadn't had the time to truly get to eating John, but it had tried. There was a gaping hole in his side. "Hole" wasn't really the right word, though. It looked like something had taken a huge bite, and one look at the wendigo's teeth – still dripping with fresh blood – revealed that that was exactly what had happened. His bones were cut into smoothly, like biting into an apple instead of a living, breathing creature. Only a little bit of his left lung was still intact, and likewise, what remained of his entrails hung out of his tore body grotesquely.

Shocked – horrified – Roxy could only look up at the creature. It stared back at her, and then, just barely, its chapped lips stretched into a thin smile.

It raised its clawed hand again, but Roxy didn't react this time. She didn't move at all except to scream when the beast mercifully ripped into her.


End file.
